In "The Paring Knife" by Michael Oppenheimer; the paring knife that the speaker finds under his refrigerator while cleaning is a symbol of the past marital problems that the characters in the story experienced. In the story, the speaker says, " I showed the knife to the woman I love and she said, "Oh. Where did you find it?" After I told her, she put the knife on the table and then went into the next room and continued to clean." This shows that the authors' wife is reluctant to talk about the argument they had and they are both once again avoiding the issue between them, just like they did on the night of the incident. When the speakers' wife enters the kitchen again, she immediately grabs the knife and slides it back under the refrigerator where her husband happened upon it in the first place. This symbolizes the problems the characters were having in the past and the fact that the wife wants to leave them there. The speakers' wife believes that there is no need to bring up long forgotten events when it is obvious that it is a mile-stone that they have long surpassed together. She does not throw the knife away because even though it is remembered from a bad experience, she does not want to forget a challenge that they over-come together and keeps it as a symbol of their past and a token of what only made their relationship stronger. The knife also symbolizes a old wound in their relationship that may be forgotten but not quite healed. By placing it back under the fridge, the characters are unconsciously saying that that wound will not be re-opened and the knife, which represents the argument they had, has to remain under the fridge so that they do not remember the pain the wound caused.